The Biggest Man Around
by alcimines
Summary: Fred Dukes - the Blob - is by anyone's definition a super-villain. But even the bad-guys have friends and family... and a hero is a man who won't let those people down.


THE BIGGEST MAN AROUND

My name is Fred Dukes and most folks would tell you that I'm one of the bad guys. And I suppose that's right.

I don't know if I decided to be what I am or if it just kinda happened that way. But I am what I am. And I don't think it can be changed.

I'm one of the bad guys.

* * *

"Where are you going?" Domino asked all quiet-like. She was standing in the door of my room, leaning against the doorframe as she watched me pack. Like with just about everything she does, she made that look pretty good.

"Out," I said. I didn't really feel like talking. Maybe it wasn't too smart to be that short with Dom. The lady's got a temper and doesn't take kindly to someone being mouthy with her.

She nodded, "What do I tell Pietro?"

I zipped up my bag. Inside was a change of clothes and my toothbrush.

I stopped and thought about what Domino had said, "Tell him that I'm gonna take a few days off. Gonna visit family."

"Anything else?" Domino asked as she got out of the doorway - and out of my way.

I'd never told anyone in the Brotherhood about my family, and I didn't plan to start now.

"Nah. See you later, hot-stuff. Keep everything together here while I'm gone."

Dom smiled, "How are you fixed for cash?"

Okay, that was a sore point. You know, I made a lot more money back when I was just a crook. Freedom-fighting, or terrorism, or being Magneto's most disposable pack of flunkies, or whatever the hell it is we do in the Brotherhood sure doesn't pay a hell of a lot.

"I'll get by," I said as if everything was okay.

Dom fished a slim leather wallet out of her pants and tossed it to me.

"Pay me back later," she said with a shrug. Then she walked away. I admired the view as she did that - Dom really can work that skin-tight suit that she usually wears.

You know, I'm not big on taking money from women. I'm just old fashioned, I guess. But...

There was a thousand bucks in the wallet. I looked at it and wondered if Dom always carried that much cash on her - in brand new, fresh out of the ATM, hundred-dollar bills, no less. Or if she had figured out something serious was up and decided to cut me a break.

That last part seemed kinda unlikely coming from a lady who'd damn near killed me the one and only time I patted her on the ass. And I was just trying to be friendly!

You know, like my Daddy said: there's no figuring dames. One second they're chasing you down the street - screaming curses and trying to shoot your balls off. Then the next time you turn around, they're doing something nice for you.

Shaking my head at the eternal puzzle that is woman, I stuffed the money in my pocket and tossed the wallet onto the dresser. There wasn't time to think about what Dom had done. And besides, thinking isn't really what I do.

* * *

My brother's name is Bill and he's a good guy. When we were growing up, he never picked on me - well, I suppose he did, but no more than older brothers always do - and he was a stand-up guy when I began changing. I'll never forget that time he took on three older guys after they started kicking me around an alleyway. He looked like 150 pounds of hamburger after they were done with him.

Bill ain't a mutant. After high-school, he joined the Army while I wandered into the supervillain racket. When his tour was over, Bill came home and used the money the Army gave him to go to a community college. Now he's got a nice little business repairing computers and other gizmos. He's also married, has three kids, and is paying off a house in the 'burbs that he admits is probably too pricey for him.

I tease Bill about being a square, but I'm really sorta proud of him. Sometimes I wonder what would of happened if he'd been the one who put on 500 pounds in a summer and then found out that he could lift a truck, while I'd been the one who ended up shooting people in really sucky parts of the world.

What would we have been like if things had gone the other way? Deep down inside, I guess I think Bill would have done everything better than me, and I'd still be a loser. It ain't easy to admit that, but that's how I feel.

Me and Bill keep in touch with Christmas cards and the occasional phone-call or email. His wife doesn't like me much, so I keep my distance from her. Sometimes business will take Bill out of town and - if we can manage it - we'll get together to have a beer and talk over old times. He says that the FBI or the MRD will every now and then drop by and ask him questions about me and the other guys in the Brotherhood. Since Bill ain't a part of any of that, it hasn't been a problem yet. But that's just another reason to keep my distance.

Bill's the only family I got. So when he called me and said he was in trouble, I had to do something.

* * *

A nice thing about truck-stops is that they have big, sturdy chairs - truckers tend to put on the pounds. So whenever me and Bill get together, we usually go to a truck stop. This time, we were at "AJ's" - a nice-enough place south of Lubbock that's just off of I-20. The food is really good.

Bill was sitting across from me at a table in the dining room. He looks like me - minus 500 pounds and with a little gray hair. And he looked worried.

"So what the hell is wrong?" I asked.

Bill glanced around and then said, "It's Simon."

I nodded slowly. 'Simon' is Simon Frederick Dukes. He's Bill's oldest son. I did some quick math in my head and decided that Simon was somewhere between 13 and 16 years old. I lose track of things like that.

"So what's with him?" I asked.

Bill sighed, "He's a mutant. And he's got himself involved with a gang."

I winced. In other words, Simon was about as dumb as I was when I was his age.

"When did he turn?" I asked.

Bill took a long drink from his coffee cup, "He went mutie a couple months back, but we saw some signs of it earlier. We were keeping quiet about it because of this mutant registration bullshit."

I nodded, "What can he do?"

"He turns invisible."

I frowned, "That don't seem like something that'd get him into too much trouble."

Bill smiled tiredly, "That's what I thought. For a while, the biggest problem was keeping him out of the girl's showers at school."

I made a note to get Simon a nice digital camera for next Christmas.

"And then this gang-thing popped up?" I said.

And now Bill began to look even more worried, "Yeah, it's a white-trash biker gang that calls themselves the Sabers. They used to be just a bunch of local losers who made a few bucks dealing shit-quality drugs and whoring out their girlfriends and sisters to anyone with twenty bucks. But Simon... well... he got to the age where he's caught up in the whole 'I'm-a-rebel-badass-being-kept-down-by-the-Man'-li ne of bullshit. When a kid goes that route, the guys in a biker-gang can look kinda cool. He took off a couple of weeks ago and we haven't seen him since, but a friend with the cops tells me that lately there's been a lot of mysterious robberies all over this part of the state - big-money kind of robberies where nobody sees anything suspicious until things just turn up missing. And now, whenever I see any of those guys who're in the Sabers riding around town, they're all driving flashy new Harleys."

We paused while the waitress put our dinner in front of us. Bill was having a hamburger. I was having a steak, some pot-roast, and a fried chicken with all the fixings. The waitress refilled our coffee-cups and then took off.

"Bill," I said quietly. "Look... maybe I can find Simon and bring him home. But you and me both know I can't make him stay. If he wants to hang out with a gang, nobody can stop him."

Bill didn't say anything about how this whole mess just about described my teenage years to a 'T' and - come to think of it - might describe my right now pretty well, too. He always has been nice to me. But then he nodded and said, "I know, but dammit I'm his father! I can't believe that Simon is thrilled with all of this crap his new buddies have him doing."

I shrugged, "Look, Bill, if Simon can turn invisible - then he can just walk away from that gang any time he wants, right? So if he's not walking, then he probably likes where he is."

Bill took a bite from his burger and then pulled a picture out of his jacket pocket and put it on the table in front of me.

"Maybe not. I think the Sabers have something on him," Bill said.

The photo showed Simon and a girl. Simon was a good-looking kid - just like I remembered him. But he'd grown up and now he who looked like he should be thinking about what he should do when he got out of high-school.

In the picture, Simon was sitting next to a cute black girl. You know, back when I was growing up, that sort of thing - the races mixing like that - didn't sail as much as it does nowadays. Particularly in this part of the country. Funny how things change.

I looked up at Bill, "You figure the Sabers have a line on Simon's girl?"

Bill took another bite out of his burger. It looked good - a three-quarter pounder with fried onions. I decided to order one for dessert.

"Yeah," Bill mumbled through a mouthful of beef and bread. "She vanished a while back - just before Simon took off."

I nodded as I thought that over.

"I'm thinking that the Sabers have her. And that if you could get her loose, then Simon might decide to call it off and come home," Bill said.

"You're supposing a lot," I pointed out.

He looked disgusted, "I know! I know, but right now it's all I got. Get the girl loose, make it clear to the Sabers that she and Simon are off-limits, and then maybe Simon will just walk away and straighten up."

This was about family, so I didn't have a lot of choice.

"Okay, I'll do it," I said as I started shoveling pot-roast into my mouth.

* * *

Simon's girl was named Wygenia. I ask you, what the hell kinda name is that?

The Sabers originally started in Abilene and that was also where Wygenia was from. So I headed there. Then I got a crappy room in a crappy hotel in the middle of the crappy neighborhood that was the crappy home-turf of the crappy biker-gang that my moron nephew Simon was hanging with.

Then I asked a few questions. At first, nobody wanted to talk, so I punched people until they got more cooperative. Nobody seemed to know where Wygenia was and, trust me, they weren't lying. They didn't dare.

Later that night, I lay on the floor of my hotel room - beds don't work for me - and stared up at the ceiling. I'd promised my brother that I'd help and so far I was drawing a blank.

Then somebody knocked on my door.

Getting up is always a struggle, but whoever was at the door wasn't giving up. They'd been pounding for a solid two minutes by the time I hauled the door open.

"Yeah?" I growled.

A young, worried-looking chick was standing in the hallway. She was a pretty little Mexican babe - the dark and Indian-looking kind of Mexican. She was dressed in nothing much, but it was all red and black leather.

"Ya got the wrong room," I said with a shake of my head. "I didn't call for no hooker."

"You the guy looking for Wygenia?" she asked warily.

My eyebrows rose.

* * *

We were in the all-night diner that was across the street from my hotel. After eyeing the chairs, I decided to move a table so that I could use a booth. For a second, the waitress looked like she didn't like that, but then she looked me over and decided not to push it.

I ordered three hamburgers with extra fries. The kid - her name was Inez - was having a bowl of tomato soup.

"You're gonna waste away eating stuff like that," I said to her.

"I gotta watch my weight!" she protested. "A lot of John's don't like it if you look like you're over twenty!"

I rolled my eyes and looked at the waitress, "Get her a steak. Medium. With fries."

The waitress nodded jerkily, refilled our coffee cups and walked away. I noticed that Inez didn't protest.

"So what do you know about Wygenia?" I asked.

"The Sabers got her," Inez said.

"Knew that. Got anything else? Like where she is?"

Inez nodded fast and hard, "The Sabers got a clubhouse down south of here - near Tuscola. It's an old house that belongs to one of their guys." Then she opened a purse that was smaller than my wallet, pulled out a piece of paper, and slid it over to me. I picked it up. An address was written on it.

"How do you know this?" I asked.

Inez shrugged, "One of my semi-regulars is a Saber who likes to talk about how important he is. He's always talking shit about his gang and all the big-shot stuff he does for it."

"Which gets us to why you're telling me this," I asked suspiciously.

She suddenly looked a little sad, "I know Wygenia. We grew up together. I'm a couple of years older, and I used to babysit her a lot. I don't like seeing her in trouble! And you told some of those people you were talking to that you want to help her... I'm hoping that's true."

Dressed like she was, it was kinda hard to see Inez as a teenager picking up a few extra bucks keeping an eye on the neighbor kids while Mom and Dad were away. But life throws you all kinda curves.

I finished off my coffee as I thought over what she'd said. "So what's the deal with her and the Sabers?"

I figured I might as well find out what Inez was thinking. Maybe she knew something my brother didn't.

Now Inez looked disgusted, "Inez's boyfriend - a guy named Simon - wanted to get into the Sabers. So he got himself a beat-up old bike and started sucking up to some of their guys. Then they found out he was a mutie. Next thing you know, they've got Wygenia locked up and her boy is running all over the place, boosting anything that isn't nailed down. You guys don't have any damned brains - you know that don't you? It must come with having a dick and a pair of balls. I think the extra flesh goes there instead of into your heads."

I didn't argue. And it looked like Bill had what was going on pegged right. I should have known he would.

"Is Wygenia a whore?" I asked.

Inez gave me a look that could'a froze a blast furnace, "Does that matter?"

I shook my head, "Nope. I'm gonna get her out no matter what. But since she's hanging with someone in my family, I wanna know."

Inez sighed and traced a finger along the rim of her coffee cup. "No. She's not in the life. She was working at a hair and nail place and talking about maybe getting her license, you know? I hope..."

Then she decided she was talking too much and clammed up. I decided not to push it.

"Are you using?" I asked.

She blinked in surprise, "What d'you care?"

I frowned, "Just answer the damn question."

She gave me a pissed-off look, "No, I'm not using. I do some pot every now and then, but nothing harder. The hard stuff is for fools."

I nodded. She didn't look like a 'head, but I wanted to hear it from her. Then I counted two hundred bucks of Dom's money out onto the table and slid it over to her. Hey, there was no point in giving her money if it was just gonna go up her nose or into her arm.

She gave me a long look, "I have to be on top."

It took me a second to figure out what she was talking about.

"It's for the information!" I said louder than I wanted. I think my ears were a little red.

Inez looked surprised - and then maybe a little embarrassed. As she stuffed the money into her purse, the waitress put a steak in front of her. It looked good. I kinda wished I'd ordered a couple of them instead of the burgers.

* * *

"You sure about this?" Inez asked as I climbed out of the rented van she was driving. She was pretty worried.

"I'll be okay," I growled. "You just stay here, out of sight. If Simon and his girl show up and I'm not around, just get them out of here, you understand? I'll catch up later."

She nodded - maybe a little doubtfully. Actually, I was pretty glad she'd volunteered to be the wheelman... er... wheelwoman... for this job. I have a hell of a time getting around on my own. With her doing the driving, all I had to do was rent a van and my problems were solved.

"Be careful," Inez called as I turned on my heel and went crunching down the gravel road.

That made me chuckle. I don't do careful.

* * *

The house was old and needed paint and some roof-work. And there were a lot of bikes parked around it. It sure looked like Inez had steered me in the right direction.

A rough-looking guy in a leather jacket was standing near the front-door, lighting up a cig. He gave me a long, narrow look as I walked up to him and then said, "Hey, fat man, you got the wrong place. Turn around."

I pulled my punch, so I only broke his jaw. Then I stomped past his thrashing body and kicked down the front-door. As I stepped inside, I didn't bother to turn sideways and squeeze through. So I took out the door-frame and part of the walls on either side of the door.

About a dozen bikers and some of their broads were inside the house. And they were now all staring at me with wide eyes. I recognized Simon. He was off in the corner with a bottle of Budweiser hanging from his hand. He didn't look happy and he wasn't wearing biker colors.

"Uncle Fred?" Simon said, breaking the shocked silence. I ignored him.

The biggest and toughest looking biker slowly got to his feet and said, "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm the Blob, bitch," I answered.

I've always wanted to say that. Suck it, Juggs.

Everyone looked blank.

"Who?" someone asked.

"I think he's one of those X-guys," someone else answered unsurely.

Oh, for Pete's sake.

"Bikers are pansies," I said to the room in general. And just like I figured, that got things started.

* * *

The house was burning merrily and unconscious guys were scattered all over the front yard. I didn't really want any of them burning with the house - that was going a little too far. The biker-chicks who hadn't run off were trying to wake up their men. So far, they weren't getting much of anywhere. Some of the smarter ones were doing first-aid.

Flipping open a cellphone that I'd took from one of the unconscious bodies, I called 911 and gave them the address.

"What is the nature of the emergency?" the operator said.

"Big fight. Lotsa people hurt. You're gonna need a three or four ambulances," I said. Then I tossed the phone away.

Simon and Wygenia were with me. She had been locked in the basement, but springing her was no problem. At the moment, the kids were all tangled up with one another and were frantically swapping spit while taking turns saying that they loved each other.

Yeesh.

"Let's go," I said to them. The cops were going to show up eventually - towards the end of the fight, the last few Sabers who were still left on their feet were trying to shoot me. And the sound of a shot carries a long way. I sure didn't see any good reason to hang around and beat-up the cops. "Because it's fun," is an okay reason to do things - not a good reason.

"Hey, you!" I yelled at one of the biker chicks.

She looked at me. She was a pretty blond with a nice rack who really should find a better class of man to hang around with.

I pointed to the kids - who were still sucking face, by the way, "They're off-limits. You understand? Tell your guys that when they finally wake up."

She nodded her head so hard that I thought it would fall off.

* * *

Inez was waiting for us and we all piled into the van. Inez and Wygenia exchanged a quick, over-the-back-of-the-car-seat hug. Then Inez gave Simon a long, hard, and cold look before she put the van in gear and got us out of there.

The ride back to town was quiet. I didn't have much to say. Inez didn't either. And the kids were still wrapped up in one another.

We dropped them off at a motel south of Abilene. I gave them a couple hundred bucks and told them to lie low for a while. Then Inez drove me back to my hotel.

* * *

It was early that morning when I called Pietro.

"Where the hell are you?" he yelled.

"I had a family problem. It's settled. I'll be back tomorrow night," I said. Then I waited for him to hand me the usual load of crap.

Then Pietro surprised me by not immediately going into a rant. After a second or two, he sighed and said, "Well, it's not like I can complain too much about someone having to work out some family issues. See you tomorrow."

"Okay," I said. Then I closed the phone.

Inez was asleep, curled up in the pile of pillows and blankets on the floor of my hotel room. When we got back to my room, she followed me inside. When I asked her what she was doing, she just smiled, got up on a chair, and kissed me.

Of course, Inez was on top for happened next - which was only common sense.

She said it was for helping Wygenia and Simon.

"You're the biggest man I ever met," she told me with a smile.

I grinned and she made a face at me, "I don't mean that! I mean... you're a hero."

That surprised the hell out of me.

A hero. Me.

Imagine that.

But most important of all - I'd finally been laid without having to pay for it.

* * *

Bill and I were back in "AJ's".

"Thanks," Bill said. He was trying the pot-roast this time. I had a quadruple order of the pork chops.

I shrugged, "No problem. What's Simon got to say for himself?"

Bill sighed, "He's talking about getting his act together. But... well... we'll have to see."

I nodded. In the long run, you make your own way in this life and nobody can do it for you. Of course, you can help...

"There's some people who might be able to give him a hand. Maybe help steer him right," I said as I sliced my pork-chops into quarters.

Bill suddenly looked interested.

"It's that school I've told ya about," I added.

Bill frowned, "I thought you didn't like those guys."

I shook my head, "This ain't about 'like'. It's about family." Then I shoved a business card for Xavier's school over to Bill. He picked it up and looked like he was thinking it over.

"Don't tell nobody that I told you about this," I added. "It might get me in trouble at work. The guy I work for can be such a little bitch sometimes."

"No problem," Bill said. "Hey, why don't you order desert? I'm buying."

I grinned, "Nah, but I got something for you."

Then I put the bag up on the table. Bill took a peek inside. Then he blinked hard and closed the bag in a hurry.

"How much is it?" he asked.

"About fifteen thousand bucks," I said. "It was in the Sabers' clubhouse."

Bill gave me a hard look. He's an honest guy.

"I did some checking," I said real fast. "That's more than enough money to get Wygenia through beautician's school, and if she's on the straight and narrow and has a job..."

Bill smiled, "...that'll be another good reason for Simon to settle down."

I shrugged, "It's not guaranteed. Nothing is. But it's a chance."

Bill took the bag and put it on the floor next to his chair. I'd kept some money, of course. Enough to pay back Domino's loan, and another couple of thousand for Inez - in return for a promise from her that she'd at least think about trying some other way of making a living.

Bill shook his head and grinned at me, "You know, Fred. I always said you were really the smarter brother."

"Damn straight," I said.

Then we both laughed.


End file.
